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N. Korea angrily makes nuclear threat

North Korea swiftly lashed out against the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation of its December launch of a long-range rocket, saying Wednesday that it will strengthen its military defenses, including its nuclear weaponry, in response.

The defiant statement from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry was issued hours after the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Pyongyang’s Dec. 12 rocket launch as a violation of a ban against nuclear and missile activity. The resolution, which required approval from Pyongyang’s ally China, also added to sanctions against the North.

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The Foreign Ministry called the launch a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space rather than a test of long-range missile technology. It said North Korea “should counter the U.S. hostile policy with strength, not with words.”

The statement ominously warned that North Korea will “bolster the military capabilities for self-defense including the nuclear deterrence.”

The wording “considerably and strongly hints at the possibility of a nuclear test,” analyst Hong Hyun-ik at the private Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul said Wednesday.

North Korea conducted nuclear weapons tests weeks after rocket launches in 2006 and 2009, and the region is bracing for the possibility that it may now test a third atomic device.

Satellite photos taken at North Korea’s nuclear test site in Punggye-ri last month indicated continued activity, even in winter, according to analysis by 38 North, a North Korea website affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.

The Security Council on Tuesday reiterated a demand that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons program in a “complete, verifiable and irreversible manner,” and ordered the regime to cease rocket launches.

“Today’s resolution also makes clear that if North Korea chooses again to defy the international community, such as by conducting another launch or a nuclear test, then the [Security] Council will take significant action,” U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said.

The binding resolution is the first in four years to expand sanctions against Pyongyang. It ordered the freeze of more North Korean assets, including the space agency, and imposed a travel ban on four more officials - limited sanctions that target individuals and specific companies.

“We believe that action taken by the Council should be prudent, measured, proportionate and conducive to stability,” Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong said after the vote.

Last month’s rocket launch has been celebrated as a success in North Korea, and the scientists involved treated like heroes. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cited the success of the launch in his New Year’s Day speech laying out North Korea’s main policies and goals for the upcoming year.